Eternal Winter
by Aulizia
Summary: My simple explanation of something that happened to Legolas on the road to Rivendell, which made his choice to join the Fellowship easier for him to accept.


ETERNAL WINTER

_(Oira Hrive)_

_Disclaimer - __The setting and characters within this story (with the humble exceptions of Osta En'i'leitha, Meghan, Aart and the town of_ _Mære Mórstapa) belong to the creative genius of J.R.R. Tolkien, I own nothing, save the idea behind this modest extension of his world.  Equally, the extract from the poem 'Holy Thursday' belongs to William Blake, and the Anglo-Saxon used is an extract from the ancient 'Rune Poem'. _

_Summary -__ My simple explanation of something that happened to Legolas on the road to Rivendell, which made his choice to join the Fellowship easier for him to accept._

_N.B. -__ Approx. 4,000 words written in UK-English.  Also, where a choice had to be made whether to follow the storyline of the books or the film, (I think) I've chosen the books. ;c)_

_A.N. - __Thank you Merlynne__, for all of your support and for taking the time to edit this story; thanks also to Jeannette Hetfield__, for encouraging me to write this piece, which is another little Legolas introspective for you all to enjoy!  It can be read in conjuncture with 'Broken Arrow'__, but both stand quite happily alone. :c) Enjoy!   _

ETERNAL WINTER

_(Oira Hrive)_

_And their sun does never shine._

_And their fields are bleak & bare._

_And their ways are fill'd with thorns._

_It is eternal winter there._

_- from 'Holy Thursday', by William Blake_

ETERNAL WINTER

_(Oira Hrive)_

The road to Rivendell was long and hard, meandering carelessly through the dying lands of Middle Earth.  The obscure route was marked in few minds and fewer maps, being almost as old as Time himself, but memory served as well as parchment for the travellers abroad late one autumn evening.  

Their train rarely stopped.  Sleep could not tempt them, nor hunger or thirst, assault them.  The light patter of their footsteps could rarely be heard but often felt.  Where they passed Nature stirred her waning senses.  Life flowed in their wake, frail and fleeting as a falling snowflake.  The forests cried out to them, the rivers wept and the mountains screamed, all yearning to be noticed, but the Elven party rode steadily on.  

At the head of the illustrious train rode one Elven prince.  Legolas Greenleaf, who had travelled west from the rich forests of Mirkwood.  He allowed his pensive eyes to wander over the changing landscape, while his grey steed danced beneath him.  The horse's gleaming coat shimmered like polished silver in the dusky twilight.  The Elven prince scrutinized each natural anomaly in turn: the contours of the land, the path of a warbling brook, the twisting, moss covered tree trunks, yet everything he saw was tinged with a lacklustre decay.  

Osta En'i'leitha, an Elf sent by Lord Elrond to escort the party to Rivendell, moved furthered up the ranks from his position near the rear, until he was level with the distracted prince.****

"You appear troubled, my Lord," he observed, speaking in his typical, soft-spoken manner.  Legolas turned gracefully in his saddle.  He watched his own perturbed reflection in his guide's silvery-grey eyes, while listening vacantly to the merry banter of the following train.  It infuriated him to appear so transparent!  But then Elves were apt at reading their fellows, he reasoned while quelling his anger.  It may not be so when, or rather _if_, he entered into the company of the other Races.  He blinked sharply and wondered why this particular thought should suddenly occur to him.

"Surely we are all troubled, in these trying times," Legolas replied evasively.  Osta raised a striking eyebrow, but then turned away and said no more.  However, Legolas continued to watch his guide a moment longer.  Why had Lord Elrond sent him?  For it had turned out to be an unnecessary move…  

The Mirkwood Elves had already been journeying towards Rivendell when they had first encountered Osta.  They were going to share, among other things, the news concerning the unfortunate developments with regard to the creature Gollum.  They had failed to keep him captive.  Legolas felt his blood chill.  Just imagining that 'thing' roaming freely through his forest was sickening, and yet, he considered broodingly, every living being had its own thread to weave in the rich tapestry of life.  

Legolas pulled his gaze away from the dark Rivendell Elf in frustration.  Even Osta could not tell them why their presence in Rivendell was so imperative.  Why would Lord Elrond ensure their passage to his house in such a secretive fashion?  It made Legolas uneasy, a feeling he was not used to experiencing.  Exactly what had happened?

= = = = =

The diamond stars glittered like sequins embroidered in a satin sky.  The crescent moon rose higher, reflecting shafts of watery light, as the night air grew cooler.  The Elves cheerful laughter faded and, accompanied by the howling of nearby wolves, their songs took on bittersweet sentimentalities.

With the Anduin safely behind them and the Misty Mountains far enough ahead to still appear encouraging they rode on into the night, until a shout broke out from the Elven ranks.  

"Ho, what lies yonder?" called one member of the party who was riding towards the back of the travelling company.

Legolas' keen eyes had already sought out the danger and his hands clasped his well-crafted bow.  Before the Elven party, strewn about crossroads that were overgrown with bracken and gorse, laid the wreckage of an earlier expedition.  Wooden wagons, charred black, lay on their sides in beds of ash.  The growing darkness almost hid the wreckage from sight, but the unmistakable stench of death lingered pungently on the air.  

Legolas dismounted lithely, followed closely by Osta and a few more of the Elves while the rest of the party scanned the area intently, bows at the ready, unhindered by the failing light.

"Goblins," deduced Osta, curling his lip in disgust as he pulled a distinctly crude arrow from the side of one cart.  "You can tell by the shape of the arrowhead," he said, turning to Legolas, who gave a tepid nod.

"And who were they attacking this time?" he asked.

"Men," sighed another dismounted Elf forlornly, as he came upon the remnants of the party.

"I wonder what they were doing out here?" mused Legolas aloud.  "There are no nearby settlements, are there?"

"Yes actually, a new village appeared in these parts a mere century ago," replied an Elven scout.

"We should inform them of what we have found," said Legolas slowly, his light eyes darkening while his fair hair was bandied by the wind.

"We will have little choice!" said Osta derisively.  "The quickest road to Rivendell passes through the squalor of their town."

"But first, we cannot leave their dead as carrion," declared Legolas firmly.  

There were murmurs of reluctant disagreement among his party, but eventually it was decided that they would build a pyre, and although it would likely be seen they felt safe in the knowledge that the attack had taken place some weeks earlier, and if the Goblin raiders were so foolish as to attack them then they were suitably armed.

But nothing was heard or seen from the Goblin attackers, and even as the darkest hours of the night reached their zenith a temporary peace followed the Elves as they rode on.  Legolas gazed ahead, unable and unwilling to look back on what he was leaving behind.  His father, Thranduil, King of Northern Mirkwood had foreseen that this was the path laid before his son.  But as of yet, in his heart Legolas could not readily accept it.

Many thoughts troubled his mind.  Lord Elrond's actions, Gollum's escape, but weighing most heavily upon him was the news that the Lady Arwen Evenstar was to sacrifice her immortality for the love of a Man.  Aragorn, son of Arathorn, no less.  It was not that the relationship in itself was surprising, but rather the depths that it had reached.  Legolas knew the Ranger somewhat and had watched his journey from boy to man.  This made his task all the more difficult, because one of Legolas' duties once reaching Rivendell was to speak out against this union on behalf of his father.  He did not relish the task, but he saw it as a necessary evil, and of course he could not imagine bringing dishonour to his family be disobeying his father!  Legolas closed his mind to these troublesome thoughts and refocused on the road ahead.

= = = = =

Before long the prince turned his head questioningly to Osta as one single spiral of homely smoke rose from the approaching village in the dawn-tinged sky.  The grey pillar loitered in the air, until a sharp breeze from the west swept the sky clean. 

"There she is, Mære Mórstapa," commented the Elven guide without prompt as the outline of the village presented itself.  "We cannot linger here, not that we should wish to.  Once I have seen you safely to Rivendell I have business in the golden land of Lothlórien."  At this unexpected news Legolas raised an eyebrow in surprise.

"Your road is difficult indeed."

"I _must_ speak with the Captain of Lórien."

"Haldir?" asked Legolas doubtfully.  Osta merely nodded his dark head broodingly.

"You know him?"

"I know of him," replied Legolas.  "And rumours of why you seek him," he added cryptically.

Again Osta nodded his head grimly and fell silent once more, and any lingering curiosity that Legolas may have felt in regard to his guide's secretive plans was left unsatisfied as the Elves passed into the sleeping town.  

But the filth, which they had come to expect from Men, was somewhat lacking.  Mære Mórstapa was not a town of dirt and grim, but of decay and rot.  Its houses stood boarded up, its street empty of life.

"What has happened here?" mused one Elf.  "It is a ghost town."

"Not quite," argued Legolas softly, with a glance in Osta's direction.  "We saw smoke rise from somewhere.  We will find its source."

Without waiting for a response Legolas urged his mount forwards, keen to search alone and be free of his company for a short time at least.  He knew roughly the spot of the source of the smoke and trotted through the derelict streets in that direction, until he reached a path of beaten mud, which led into some overgrown scrubland.  The track was too narrow for his horse to travel, so Legolas swung himself elegantly from his saddle and landed nimbly on his feet.

The little dusty lane was choked with brambles and gorse bushes, and gnarly yew trees dotted the surrounding countryside as Legolas was led slowly away from the main body of the village.  A sudden rustle in the undergrowth made him stop and reach for his bow.  He narrowed his Elven eyes and took a measured step in the direction of the disturbance; the sound had been made by something too small to be an Orc, and yet the hidden creatures made too much noise to be innocent vermin or fowl.  Pinpointing the thicket concealing his quarry took Legolas no longer than a heartbeat, but then, because the Elf was not in the habit of killing unidentified assailants, he used the arc of his bow to brush aside the tangle of thorny, supple brushwood screening whatever had made the sound.   

Legolas looked down at two wide, terrified eyes that where staring straight back at him.  The brown eyes, almost lost beneath a disarray of matted black hair, were set in the face of a young boy seemingly frozen, such was his fear.  Legolas watched the child closely for a moment and then replaced his bow.

"Who are you?" he asked directly.

"Aart," choked the child, too scared, or too uncouth to give the proper formal reply, although he did manage to scramble to his feet and bend his ill-nourished body in a little bow.  Legolas remained silent and took a moment to consider his options before addressing the boy again.

"I wonder, Aart son of Man, whether you can aid me?"

The boy continued to stare at the Elf, daunted, afraid and now perplexed.  All he had wanted was to snare a rabbit or hare for breakfast!  Crawling through the undergrowth, ready to pounce on any unwary prey, was his ineffectual method.  He hadn't even heard the approach of the stranger's footsteps, hadn't even known anyone was there, until he'd made a noisy, unsuccessful strike at a young leveret, and then he'd _felt_ the presence of someone else.  An Orc, he'd feared, but an Elf was equally terrifying to the child.

"Can you help?" Legolas prompted again, this time with a little more force.

"M-me?" stammered Aart.  Legolas nodded his silvery head.

"Can you take me to the leader of this village?"  He watched as the boy seemed to think about this, his dirty, scratched little face contorting in a worried frown, but eventually he nodded and beckoned Legolas to follow him further along the rambling path.

Legolas followed silently, wondering at this strange turn in events, when his ears pricked as the sound of a distance song touched his senses.  He glanced at the child Aart, but with his inferior hearing he seemed unaware of the tune.  Unsettled, Legolas continued to listen, the language was foreign to him; it was probably some dying, local dialect.  However, he could tell that the voice was female, it held no comparison to the beautiful Elven melodies that he was accustomed to, and yet, the strange language and glaze of sadness covering each word was just mysterious enough to ignite a flicker of even Elven curiosity.

"What is that sound?" he asked, when he was certain the song was loud enough for even his odd little guide to hear.  Aart turned and licked his lips hesitantly.

"My mother, every morning she sings to my sister," he explained slowly.  He listened for a moment.  "She's singing about the cruel beauty of winter."

"_Ís byþ oferceald_," sang the voice, in the soothing rhythm of a lullaby "_ungemetum slidor.  Glisnaþ glæshlútor_," it continued, as Legolas made his way stealthily through the bracken after Aart, "_gimmum gelícost.  Flór forste geworuht fæger ansíene_," the singer sighed sadly before falling silent.

   
As they emerged into a clearing Legolas' sharp eyes spied a woman in the tiny open garden belonging to an almost hidden thatched cottage.  Dressed in dull black robes she was kneeling under an impressive oak tree, with her back to them.  Although Legolas approached her silently, Aart's clumsy footsteps gave away their presence.  The woman started and turned her tanned face in fear.  Legolas tilted his head to one side thoughtfully as a pair of milky, sightless eyes stared straight through him.

"Aart?" she cried, as she rose blindly to her feet.  "Is that you?" she added uncertainly in the Common tongue.

"It's me," he called in reply, leaving the Elf and racing over to her side, to protect or be protected Legolas couldn't determine.

"Back so soon?" she remarked, and her words held a tired sorrow, as if speaking took incredible effort.

"I brought someone with me," said Aart, his eyes drawn back to the unbreakable magnetism of the Elf.  The woman frowned in sudden confusion.  She strained to hear her guest as a coil of fear tightened within her heart.

Legolas remained hesitantly silent.  He had asked to be taken to the leader of the village, then why had he been brought to this blind, peasant woman?  And where was the babe, Aart's sister?  He kept his silence a moment longer, before honouring the woman with the sound of his voice.

"I did not mean to startle you, lady."  But this did not seem to comfort the woman, for she drew a few sharp, shaky breaths before speaking again.

"What kind of witchcraft is this?"

A chime of musical laughter and an assurance that no witchcraft had followed him into her garden greeted this question, as the woman gripped Aart fearfully close to her.

"Then why did I not hear you come?" she demanded.  "Who are you?" begged the woman in a whisper.

"My name is Legolas Greenleaf, an Elf of the Woodland Realm."

"An Elf?!" exclaimed the blind woman, her ashen face paled further, so the dirt clouding her features stood out all the more.  "Yes," she smiled bitterly, "you would come now.  When I am thus."

She turned her face to hide her pain.  Long years she had waited to _see_ an Elf, sustained on stories of their wonder.  He would come now, when she was a broken woman, robbed of sight.  He had not come when she had been a girl, when the world shone as brightly to her as any other, nor even when she had grown to womanhood when the autumn lights of her life were fading, but lingered still.  He came now, when her world was black, so she could not look upon the radiant beauty of the Elves.  Such a blessing was not hers to behold.  Not even this one crumb of sweetness was she to taste.

"I asked your son to take me to the leader of this place," Legolas cut though her dark, bitter thoughts, and she turned her head back to spot where she could heard the Elf's voice.  "Why then has he brought me to you?"

"Because, my Lord Legolas, Elf of the Woodland Realm we are all that remain," she replied softly.  "I am Meghan, daughter of Bawdewyn and widow of Alwin.  It seems you already know my son Aart." 

Legolas found he had nodded, before realising this uselessness of the gesture.

"What about your daughter?" he asked puzzled.  

"I have no daughter!" Meghan choked, wrapping her arms around herself; and then she suddenly turned and lurched uneasily towards the house, hands outstretched before her.  Aart looked sadly after his mother; then turned to Legolas.

"My sister is with our father now," he said simply, before following his mother.

Legolas felt the almost overwhelming urge to turn and leave, to escape.   But he had gone too far to turn back; too many things were left unexplained, on their part and his, and so it was, against his better judgement, that Legolas found he had followed the woman and her son up the rickety path to the front of their mud cottage.  It was an odd, squat little house, with tiny shuttered windows.  It was practical, which was all it needed to be, and yet Legolas' Elven senses recoiled at its complete lack of beauty. There was absolutely nothing aesthetically pleasing!  Dwarves at least took pride in their craftsmanship, but Men were content to live in hovels as long as they were sheltered from the elements!  

He stood in the dark doorway, his back to the morning light, his eyes scouring the one cluttered room of the building.  Everything was drab, from the chipped pewter plates to the shabby minimal furniture.  Aart sat on a chair, while his mother stayed to the shadowy corners of the room.

"Elves do not pass through the town of the Moor Walkers, I dare not hope you bring happy news," she murmured, again sensing his ethereal presence.

"No.  Glad tidings I cannot offer," conceded Legolas, and all the lightness in his voice died, for he would be the cause of additional pain.  "On our way through this land, my party and I found-"

"Death," offered the woman Meghan in interruption, silent tears escaping her sightless eyes.

"Yes."

"It is our constant companion," she stated dryly.  "They left, the people of this village, like blood slowly seeping from a dying body," she added in a whisper.  "They travelled south to Rohan, some further still to Gondor, but twenty or so stayed, to collect the last of the harvest," she explained.  "Including myself, Alwin, Aart and our new daughter," she added with a sightless, sorrowful smile seeming to forget a moment earlier she had denied the second child's existence.  "She was so weak," Meghan murmured, forgetful of her company.  "He blamed me, said I had shared my curse with her," she muttered to herself.  "Two weeks ago everyone went, except she, I and Aart; I couldn't care for her alone.  The others travelled east to the fields, the women and children along with the men, my man," she paused.  "But then she left, and they did not come back."

Legolas glanced with pitying curiosity at the woman, piecing the disjointed fragments of her tale together.  So her sickly daughter had died and Golbins had murdered her husband.  Men truly were the strangest creatures!  So simple and yet, inexplicable!  Had this female been an Elf she would surely have died of grief for her lost mate and child, yet Man had a canny knack for surviving, like a plague, or something similarly enduring yet equally sordid.  Eternity would not be long enough to fathom Man, decided Legolas resolutely.

"What happened to my husband, my Lord?" whispered Meghan in a voice that made it clear she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer.  Legolas thought back to the carnage he had found.

"Goblins," he simply said.  "We burned the bodies.  It seemed more respectful than leaving them to the mercy of Nature."

"I should-I should have liked to have been there for that, to say goodbye," she stammered awkwardly.  "My husband was a good man at heart."

Legolas remained tactfully silent, until a new thought unexpectedly struck him.

"What will you do now?" he asked suddenly.  In the presence of these mortal creatures he was more keenly aware of the passing of time then ever before.  He knew Osta would already be eager to leave, and he himself had long road to travel.

"Do?" repeated Meghan bemused.

"Follow your people to Rohan?" prompted Legolas, suddenly wishing that he had not turned the conversation down this path.

"We would not make it passed the Goblins scouring this village let alone endure the thousands of leagues to Rohan," she sighed in defeat.  "But what would you know of such practicalities, you are an Elf," she whispered, sighing like a dying breeze.

"Maybe so lady, but neither of you will last long here," he said starkly, looking at Aart's underfed frame.  Meghan tugged her tattered shawl closer around her shoulders, as if trying to warm herself against the harshness of the Elf's intuition.  But the shadow of an idea was forming in her mind.

"Where are you heading, my Lord Legolas?" she asked softly.  Legolas' sharp eyes flickered from where they had rested on the attentive child to his mother.  Her vacant eyes made her hard to read.

"To Rivendell," he replied, wondering if this would mean anything to an uneducated peasant woman.  To his surprise the corners of her mouth rose in a smile, and the lines of work and short years full of trials lifted momentarily from her face.

"I remember tales told of that fair place from when I was a little girl, of the grace of the Elves and of their goodness," she paused momentarily to find her courage.  "I beg you to let me ask one thing of you, my Lord?  Take my son with you.  Ten years would be long enough, ten short years to you can seem no more than a day!" she begged, tears washing a clean path through the mud coating her cheeks.

"I won't leave you, mother!" cried Aart, leaping to his feet.  "I won't go!" he shouted again, running to his mother and burying his face in her skirt.

"Please, Aart," she begged.  "I can't leave their memories here, but you can leave me."

"You would give up your son?" condemned Legolas scornfully.

"I would give him the chance of life!" she cried.  "Though it shall break my heart and leave me to die abandoned in darkness.  He cannot live off my love alone!"

 "Love?" the Elf repeated derisively.  "You call it love to leave your son to a stranger?"

"Yes, you Elves do not have a monopoly over the heart!" she swore fervently.  "One day you shall feel its bittersweet kiss, and then you shall understand."

Legolas stared at the broken pride shining through the defiant face of the woman.  She was right, he wanted to laugh at the irony of it, this dirty peasant without a drop of nobility in her blood - if such pure love could blossom in this barren wasteland, then why not in the heart of an Elf?  He may not as yet understand the strength of an emotion so powerful that the Lady of Rivendell would willingly give up eternity for it, but perhaps there was still a little time left in Middle Earth to learn the secrets of the heart?

She had said that her people had left for Rohan, mused Legolas.  He suddenly thought of Osta, on his way to Lórien, which was on the way to Rohan…

"Come lady," he laughed, "gather what things you need, I shall see that you are taken safely to very gates of Rohan."

"W-what?" Meghan stammered uncertainly.

"I've a guide I've no need of.  I'll give him to you for as long as you _do_ have need of him!" he said lightly.

"I don't know," she said uncertainly, "I don't know if I can leave."

"You can," smiled Aart, a seed of hope growing inside of him, as he gazed up at his mother and slipped a grubby little hand into her own.  "I'll look after you and you can look after me."

"But I do not understand, my Lord," said the woman shakily, accepting her son's logic.  "What can I give in return for such generosity?"

"You have taught me a valuable lesson, Elf-friend Meghan," Legolas smiled mildly, watching as Osta suddenly appeared at the bottom of the overgrown garden.  He turned from the mother and son and stepped out of the ramshackle cottage to greet his former guide.

Things had suddenly settled themselves more comfortably in Legolas' mind.  The simplicity of a mother's blind love for her son had unclouded his own eyes.  He would fight for the simple love of this land.  For all of Nature that had called out to him during this journey, he would fight.  He would set himself against the Evil growing in the world for all that could not defend themselves.  

Legolas had begun to understand the role he must start to play in these dark times.  He would defy his father.  He would go to Rivendell and stand alongside this man Aragorn, he would pledge his allegiance to this son of Kings, and face whatever Evil might come alongside him.   For Legolas, Aragorn would epitomise all that Man could be.

'Yes,' he thought resolutely, gazing at a tiny patch of freshly turned earth under the huge oak, which was covered with wilting flowers.  It was the spot where he had first seen the woman Meghan singing, 'as eternal winter falls over the time of the Elves, I will place myself on the side of Men.'

THE END

****


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